Of Endings
by foodforever
Summary: You have so much more to lose when you're immortal. [Sequel to On Loan and In Dreams.]
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs.**

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><p>The air was thick with the murmur of anticipation as the crowd shifted nervously in their seats in the stands surrounding the public training ground.<p>

It didn't seem to be a particularly fair match – a broad, brawny soldier in full battle-armour pitted against a young, slender girl clad only in sparring leathers. Then again, no one doubted that her person would be warded against all but the most grievous of blows – her family's crest emblazoned proudly on her chestpiece confirmed that her gear was most likely steeped in strong, old magic. Both parties turned to face each other; the soldier fitted his helmet over his head with grim purpose (he had been informed beforehand that under no circumstances was he to go easy on his opponent), and the girl tied a strip of cloth around her head, sitting neatly above her eyebrows, to soak up the sweat that would otherwise get into her eyes.

It was time.

The soldier drew his sword with a shrill scrape of metal on metal as a gong sounded, and wasted no time in charging towards the unarmed girl. The girl only smiled and darted to the side, running up onto one of the stands and using it as a springboard to leap lightly over his head and roll to a stop before the cache of weapons that lay gleaming behind him.

Most of Asgard had bet that she'd go for the dagger, or throwing knives, which her father favoured. But, she snatched up a heavy, gleaming halberd and got it up just in time to parry a blow from her opponent before using its weight to knock him away.

Kate let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding as the girl clearly established the upper hand in the battle, using the polearm to keep the soldier at arm's length while edging him around so that the sun was in his eyes. But still, she was a little too slow in flipping the halberd around to block another thrust, and the soldier closed in once more – Kate's heart just about stopped as he swung his sword directly at the girl's unprotected throat.

But, like a miracle, she ducked just in time and feinted to the side. The soldier was stunned a moment later when the butt of her halberd smashed into the side of his head, a blow that he hadn't thought that she'd be able to get in, considering the closeness of their quarters.

Kate winced for him.

The soldier stumbled as the girl pressed her advantage, using the wooden end of her polearm to force him back several steps before disarming him with a heavy blow to his sword-arm and sweeping his feet from under him in a broad, graceful manoeuvre.

"She's strong."

Kate didn't dare to turn her eyes from the match before her as she answered Frigga, who'd materialised at the stands to watch her granddaughter at her final examination before passing into the ranks of the junior einherjar. "She likes to win."

Both women watched as Eydis, eldest (and, at the moment, strongest) of the royal children, rammed the wooden end of her weapon into her opponent's windpipe before flipping it around and using the steel blade to slice through the strap holding his helmet to his head, sending it flopping into the dust with a limp _thump_.

Kate noted the thin line of blood that meandered its way down the soldier's throat with a kind of detached discomfort.

There was a shout – "_I yield!_" and her daughter was raising her face to the heavens, soaking in the glory of victory.

Kate slowly unclenched her hands from her skirt. Her sons leapt to their feet on either side of her, cheering on their older sister; she caught Loki's eye as Thor stood from his seat beside him in the examiner's stands to kiss his niece's forehead in a ritual of acceptance into the ranks of Asgard's warriors. Her husband was decorously calm, but she caught the white blaze of triumph in his eyes. He was proud.

Any parent would be proud.

She drew an unsteady breath and let it out in a rush, and felt Loki's gaze on her as she rose from her own seat and smoothed out her gown, trying to still the shake in her hands.

Frigga, wisely, kept her own counsel about Kate's lack of enthusiasm about her daughter's success. It was no secret that Asgard's princess, once a formidable warrior herself, had refused to take up arms after the Infinity War and had bitterly opposed her daughter's choice of future.

Still, Eydis was heartened when she turned to the spectators' stands and saw her mother there, even if she was swaying slightly on her feet. Kate even managed a smile – a weak one, but genuine, nonetheless – and she took this as all the affirmation she would ever get from her mother when it came to this part of her life.

Eydis turned back to her uncle and knelt as he recited the traditional blessing of the Einherjar before kissing her gently on the forehead.

Kate's lips thinned as Asgard roared.

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><p>"You could stand to be a <em>little<em> happier for her."

Kate huffed as she pinned her hair atop her head, sliding pins so viciously into the knot that Loki was certain that she'd pierce right through her own scalp. "I _am _happy that my daughter has succeeded at what she has put her mind to, as I have encouraged her to do numerous times over the last forty-five years. I am, however, displeased that what she had put her mind to was to join the Einherjar as their youngest cadet in over a _millennium_. Are _all _adolescents glory-blinded idiots?" She caught sight of Loki's answering smirk in the mirror and rolled her eyes. "Right. Rub it in that the gods – _not you_ – blessed me with a child _exactly _like me. Thanks. Appreciate it."

Then her gaze dropped to a picture on her dresser, and she touched a finger to the glass. "And it's not like Ian was a glory-blinded adolescent, either."

Loki was by her side in an instant, shirt half undone and his wet hair dripping onto her silk gown. "The war was costly. Your brother's death was in the pursuit of knowledge that helped us gain an advantage against Thanos. At least it _meant something_."

Kate shrugged, the overwhelming grief that once consumed her now a quiet, dull fist in her ribs. "I just wish that they'd done for him what they'd done for me," she said, quietly. "Just because he didn't die in battle, it doesn't mean that he was less brave."

Loki had heard this many times before, and even after over thirty years, he still didn't know what to say in reply.

Thankfully, Kate pulled herself together and shoved at him lightly. "Get _dressed_! We're supposed to be at the celebratory feast in half an hour and you're still in your underthings – I don't think that Eydis would be too pleased about her own father being late to her big day."

With a roll of his eyes, Loki got to his feet and magicked away the wet spots on Kate's gown. "Her big day was in the _daytime_. This is merely an excuse for everybody to get outrageously drunk. I could honestly do without watching my daughter try to drink her new comrades under the table."

"She's probably gotten Nari to brew her an entire flask of sobriety potion that she'll keep sipping from throughout the night. You forget, Lokester. Your daughter is also exactly like you." Kate shoved another pin into her hair for the heck of it. "I'd be more worried about Vali – he'll probably get so drunk that he'll try to shapeshift himself into a dragon to test the effects of alcohol and fire all mixed together in a belly. And then you will have to deal with him."

Loki flinched and turned away, waving a hand about his head to dry his hair. Vali _would _try to do that. Both of their twin boys preferred magic to war, but while Nari excelled in the chemical aspect of sorcery, Vali much preferred blowing things up and wreaking havoc. His favourite trick was shapeshifting into a tiny bilgesnipe that inexplicably would find its way into the bosoms of the court ladies – and they only figured out that it was Vali because of the complete lack of any evidence incriminating him.

Summoning his formal chestpiece to him, Loki eyed his wife of over half a century as she painted her lips and rouged her cheeks, looking not a day over thirty. She certainly looked too young for the life she'd led. Apart from some upheaval stemming from bouts of heroism in her youth – one such upheaval being her transition from mortal to immortal after voluntarily taking on a suicide mission – she was a veteran of the Infinity War, scarred by the death toll inflicted by the Mad Titan before they'd managed to separate him from the Mind, Space, and Reality gems.

But he didn't really want to think about that, now.

He cleared his throat as Kate reached for a pair of earrings. "The jade ones would be better, I believe."

Kate's lips twitched as she gently replaced the box of golden sunbursts and reached for another containing the only jade earrings that Loki ever referred to. "Remember the first time that you saw me in these?"

"Yes. You were _outrageously _drunk."

"You're a sentimental old frog."

Loki scoffed as he wrapped the ends of the garment around him and secured the leather _just so_. When he looked up, Kate was _right there_, carefully straightening his collar so that it sat evenly above the curve of his chestpiece. It was slightly ridiculous, because the top of her head barely skimmed the top of his chest and she actually had to _reach _for his collar, but he let her do it anyways, savouring her closeness. He wasn't sure why he was still so in love with her even after fifty-odd years. She was irreverent, blunt, stubborn, and, at times, completely irrational, but she still fascinated him the way she had when she'd thrown that stupid little pebble at his forehead the first time they'd met on that helicarrier on the way back from Norway.

Although, to be honest, he hadn't so much _fascinated _as he'd been _fucking furious at this fucking mortal_.

Loki smiled fondly down at the top of her head. Ah. The course of true love never did run smooth.

When she was satisfied with the state of his collar, Kate tiptoed to kiss him on the cheek. "Now you're a prince," she informed him, smiling broadly as she flicked her fingers and his jacket came soaring into her outstretched arms.

Rolling his eyes, he took the jacket from her and shrugged it on before snagging her around the waist and kissing her so hard that her squeak of surprise was completely lost in his mouth.

When they separated, Loki rested his forehead against Kate's. "You are a princess of Asgard. So is our daughter. She will be _fine_. We are not at war, and none loom over the horizon. The captains will know better than to roster a young, untried and untested member of the royal family for the most dangerous patrols. Do not fret, beloved. Our child is a warrior and Asgard _adores_ her."

Kate sighed, and Loki inhaled the ghost of her exhale across his face. "_I_ adore her," she whispered, and he heard the strain of a mother's worry weighing her words down. "Do you think that she knows that?"

Loki remembered his daughter's expression when Kate had snapped at her when she'd come back with her invitation to the warrior's guild. He recalled the quiet, resigned look in her eyes when she registered her mother's polite, disapproving interest every time she talked about her training. He'd noted the way that his daughter treated her mother's grudging tolerance with a kind of cool acceptance.

He kissed his wife again, gently. "I doubt that she realises how much you actually do."

Kate nodded, drew a shaky breath, and stepped away, smoothing down the front of her dress. Then she straightened her spine, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin.

"Come on," she said, and tugged at his arm. "We're almost late to the party that the realm has thrown for our daughter. I should be honouring my child, too. My miracle of the dawn, my baby, is a soldier."

Loki was not at all surprised at the catch in her voice, but he followed her out into the palace without saying anything about it.

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><p><strong>AN: This story takes place about 50 years after the events of _In Dreams_. Kate and Loki have three children: the eldest is a daughter named Eydis, followed by twins - Nari and Vali. This'll _probably _be the last of the Lokate series. Let me know what you guys think! **

**"The course of true love never did run smooth." - this is quoted from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, by Shakespeare.**

**Also, _shoutout to you _if you caught the TLOK reference! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs. **

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><p>Eydis had thought that her first feast in her honour would be more fun. Or maybe she was just a wet blanket.<p>

She'd gotten drunk _once_, and had hated the feeling that came afterwards, so she'd wheedled (… more like _coerced_) Nari into making her some sobriety potion. He'd clucked his tongue and said something along the lines of _drinking games cheater_, but he'd done it anyways.

That's what younger brothers are for.

But it did take discipline to keep sipping from a sobriety potion at a table that was getting steadily drunker – and being the halfway lucid person at a table that was rapidly getting more excited was kind of a bummer. Still, she figured, as she knocked a pitcher (thankfully empty) into a leg of wild boar in her attempt to reach the potatoes, she couldn't exactly call herself _sober_.

Or maybe she was a little bummed because the people at her table were so _ugh_. She knew the names of those around her – Aurelius, Kali, Johanna, and… Chad? They were all junior einherjar – except that the second youngest person there was about twenty years older than her, so she really was the most junior of the juniors – and they were mostly legacy kids. Johanna's dad, for instance, was seated a table away and was getting very drunk, very loudly. Johanna was clearly embarrassed by this and dealt with it by drinking copiously – as if she could out-drink her drunken father. Kali had tried to slow her down at first before giving up sometime between the venison and the fish courses.

Eydis pursed her lips mentally and made another encouraging sound as Chad – or maybe _Thad_ – droned on about the best sand used for blade-scouring. He was clearly a little more than sloshed, so she figured that he was just a boring drunk.

_Ugh_. She didn't know that they made those. Especially not in Asgard, where getting drunk usually ended up with having to retrieve naked men and their swords from the hunting grounds to the east of the palace the day after any major feast.

Glancing about, she caught site of Nari and Vali by the sorcerers' guild, which now housed a healthy balance of both men and women (apparently, in her father's day, it had been populated by pretty much just women). Vali was quite literally doing impersonations of his tutors – most of whom were seated close by and looking half-furious and half-impressed – and Nari was quietly charming his way into the underpants of some visiting nobleman's hapless daughter.

Ah. Puberty.

She cast her eye to the high table, where the royal family and honoured dignitaries were delicately munching on royal fare whilst the rest of the hall looked prime to break out into a food fight. Her uncle and father were deep in conversation with some visiting envoys from Vanaheim. Her mother called them "_interchangeable Legolases"_, which confused everybody because _no one _understood her references.

With a smidge of guilt, Eydis guessed that she probably would have gotten them if she'd actually read the collection of Midgardian books that her mother had gotten her as a child that escaped dust-gathering only because the palace maids were extremely diligent in their work. Nari had probably read them – he loved books more than both she and Vali combined – so that could be why he was their mother's favourite. _Ish_.

She stopped that thought before it went any further.

Whatever the Asgardians whispered about Kate – _unnatural for marrying a Jötunn, inexperienced and unsuitable to be queen, coward for being the first einherjar in six thousand years to resign from service to the crown_ – she was a fair mother. At least, any punishment that she doled out was commensurate to any crime committed – which was why on Saturday afternoons, Vali usually found himself mucking out the stables of the six-legged horses that Loki had taken to breeding. They were magnificent, yes, but they also shat their weight in manure. Eydis suspected that if Kate's punishments had been less unpleasant, Vali wouldn't have been forced to adapt to being as sneaky as he was about getting into mischief.

Kate was playing the polite princess and was chatting with the wives of said _Interchangeable Legolases_, looking classy as fuck in a black dress embroidered with dragons. Eydis thought it was incredibly clichéd – almost everything Kate wore had a dragon embroidered somewhere on it. Apparently she'd been known as the Dragon of Asgard or some other heroic bullshit back in her glory days. When asked about it, Kate had replied that it was her version of monogramming. Eydis left it at that. She was pretty sure that that wasn't the reason why. All the royal family's clothes were washed separately from everybody else's (and really, there was no one else Kate's size in the royal family, so there would be no doubt as to whom the clothes belonged to), and all that Dragon of Asgard shit was pretty much rumour and hearsay. If her mother wasn't going to tell her why straight up, she wouldn't prod. Pursing her lips, Eydis swept her gaze across the high table again, coming to a rest at the end of it.

There was a golden seat set further back on the platform that the high table stood upon. It was out of the way enough so that no one tripped over it, but it was obvious enough that no one forgot that it was there.

It was a reminder that Odin Allfather, although not walking amongst them, was watching and listening.

She was too young to really remember much of her grandfather – he had a gruff voice, but he threw her up into the air sometimes and she had laughed when he caught her. But he was deep in the Odinsleep, and had been there since the Infinity War. Her grandmother spent quite a bit of time with him since she'd semi-retired herself from court duties and let Kate take on the mantle of Asgard's queen. _My boys are grown up and running Asgard_, she'd told Eydis, once. _I deserve some peace and quiet after several millennia of testosterone-fuelled bullshit_.

Well. Maybe Frigga hadn't exactly _said_ that second bit out loud. But Eydis was good at making inferences.

Eydis turned her attention back to Chad with a sigh and frowned at how lightheaded she actually felt.

Well.

She made a polite noise of acknowledgement – Chad had somehow moved from blade scouring to saddle cleaning – and reached for her hip flask for a sip of sobriety potion.

The level of noise in the hall suddenly dipped – or maybe it seemed that way – because Johanna's father was up on his chair and roaring.

"… then I led my men in a stealth attack on their camp in the night and _gutted_ them all – Jötunn_ filth_!"

And then he spat.

There wasn't even an awkward silence following his outburst, because his mates laughingly pulled him back down and called for another toast to the hero of the Jötunn skirmishes in the early days of the Infinity War.

Eydis's dinner partners looked more sober than they had been all night. Johanna, beet red, shaking, and completely aware that she was sitting at a table with the second in line to Asgard's throne who _happened_ to be _clearly_ half-Jötunn, stammered out an apology for her father.

Eydis left her flask and deliberately picked up her goblet of wine with her pale blue hand. "Don't fret." Johanna looked up at her, and bright blue eyes met hazel ones set in a face scored by tribal markings. Eydis smiled and raised her goblet in her direction in a toast. "We can't choose our parents."

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><p>From his place at the high table, Loki, the fully Jötunn prince of Asgard, was getting ready to march over to the warriors' guild and murder Commander Olaf with his own beard when he felt the palace's wards twinge.<p>

Both he and Thor paused in their discussion of trade routes – for all of Thor's complete magical ineptitude, as the king of Asgard, he was tied to the palace's security system.

Something was wrong.

Excusing themselves as politely as they could, the brothers stood, and Loki quietly activated the wards around the hall to shield the people in it as they tried to leave the feast without looking like they were fucking uneasy in their gut. They didn't do it very well, however, because Kate caught on and excused herself somewhat less calmly before zipping after her brother-in-law and husband.

As soon as they exited the hall, Loki grabbed them both and teleported them to the lower levels of the palace before breaking into an all-out sprint.

"What's wrong?" Kate gasped, panting as she struggled to keep up with the men as they blew past tapestries and the floors transitioned from wood to stone. Fuck the skirts. And fuck the burning in her calves... and the left side of her belly… and lungs.

"The treasure vault has been breached, but we cannot teleport directly into it. That is why you ought to concentrate on running instead of talking, given that you have spent most of the last thirty years doing much of the latter and precious little of the former."

Kate was sometimes unsure as to why she married Loki.

Thor, on the other hand, was fit enough to run _and _hold a conversation. "Brother, did you-"

"No," Loki replied flatly, as they veered around a corner into a darkened corridor and he snapped his fingers to light the torches along the walls. "The last time I disrupted a big event was sixty years ago. I would not ruin my _daughter's_ big day."

Disgruntled, Thor shut up and concentrated on running. His first, botched coronation day was still something of a sore topic.

Finally, they stopped short in front of a set of double doors. Kate noted through the inferno in her chest that they were, distressingly, already ajar.

Thor cautiously prodded it open, Mjolnir at the ready. Loki stepped up beside him and threw a dazzle of sparks into the air, where they hung like wary stars.

The first thing that Kate observed was that the guards were incapacitated.

The second thing that all of them observed was a shadow that was in the process of devouring the magically-sealed case in which the Infinity Gauntlet and the Mind gem were kept.

_Fuck_.

Thor, being severely constrained by the space and the fact that he couldn't swing his hammer around without hitting something valuable and potentially dangerous, ran forward about half a step before realising all of this and halting, foot poised in mid-air.

Even in the stress of the moment, with an intruder attempting to steal an Infinity Gem not two yards away, Loki found the time to roll his eyes.

"Try to pin it down," he instructed, and set about the task of probing. The Infinity Artifacts' case was almost completely hidden under the writhing mass of shadow – Thor approached it with caution before raising his hammer.

He was not prepared for a tongue of it to whip up and catch his wrist on the downswing.

Thor had grown careless in times of peace.

Loki swore as Thor struggled and delved a mental probe straight into the entity, searching for the puppetmaster behind this servant.

An ominous _crack _reverberated throughout the treasure hall as the case buckled. Loki redoubled his efforts, but only found more darkness waiting for him – it was like a little piece of the void, cut into a manageable shape and pressed into service.

Huh.

While Loki and Thor were flipping out and going into hero-mode, Kate knelt beside a guard, frantically tossing his helmet aside and searching for a pulse.

Her own heart almost stopped when the skin under her touch remained cold and silent until a weak _thump_ pushed back against her fingertips. She checked the pulse of his partner – he was alive too, but both of them seemed to be very heavily asleep.

Kate sat back, slightly confused. _Hasn't something like this happened before? _On a hunch, she reached for the guard's temples. For the first time in thirty years, she slid into another person's mind.

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><p>At first, she thought that she'd gotten so rusty that she'd completely missed the guard and ended up in outer space. Instead of the general self-contained-ness of a consciousness, she was overwhelmed by the vastness of dark, blank space.<p>

_Oh. The astral plane. _

The _who _and _why _and _what the fucks _could be answered later, but that guard really, _really_ had to be found. Was she supposed to float around calling "Guard!"?

That question was answered for her.

"Your Highness?"

Kate whipped around, and it felt as if the space around her moved in time with her body.

"Your Highness!"

_Where the flying _fuck _is this guy? _

Squinting, she just about made out an irregular shape in the distance – a knot of green and gold armour bound in metal.

Right.

She was by the side of the frantic einherjar in the space of a thought, exploding the links on the chains around his arms and legs with the flick of a wrist. As the silver pulled away from his consciousness, he disappeared, slipping back into the physical world.

_Silver traps spirits. _

Eyeing the length of chain in her hand, Kate broke out an old trick that Ian had taught her back in the chaos of the Infinity War, when the Mind Gem was turning key agents into Thanos's servants.

Every action had to have a power source. If you followed the energy signature back to the deck, you'd find the snake in your den, the mole in your operations, and the anchor of that cell of Thanos's mind-controlled flunkies.

Kate tied her consciousness to the silver and let it guide her like a compass.

Whenever Ian said it, it sounded like a super zen journey of discovery. Pocahontas and the spinning arrow and all that shit.

In all actually, following energy signatures tended to be more like a roller coaster ride without any safety bars.

Kate felt her stomach heave as her surroundings blurred, jerking her through a myriad of minds. She couldn't even close her eyes for fear of missing something.

She seriously regretted having that extra portion of quail.

With an abrupt jerk, the trail ended.

Kate forced her dinner down and sank to her knees, staring at the eerily familiar swimming complex.

_What? _

And then, with a heave, she was thrown out of the astral plane and slammed back into her own body.

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><p>Breathing hard, she staggered to her feet, blinking rapidly.<p>

The shadow was substantially smaller than it had been before Kate's adventure – or maybe it looked that way under the weight of Mjolnir. The guard that Kate had helped was sitting up, frightened and wide-eyed. Loki was kneeling by the other guard, fingers to his temples in an echo of what Kate had done just two minutes earlier for his comrade.

Thor looked up from the writhing bit of shadow, expression slightly revolted. "It diminished when you woke him," he explained, jerking his head at the guard. "Loki's trying the same thing with his partner."

With a powerful oath, Loki rocked back on his haunches as his patient sat bolt upright, gasping in lungfuls of air.

The shadow winked out of existence entirely.

Loki scrubbed at his face with his hands. "It was a construct of the guards' minds," he announced, scowling at the men as if it was their fault that their brains had been messed around with. "Someone took over and imprisoned them within themselves before using their collective consciousness as a portal to the void. I tried to follow the connection but it unravelled before I could get anywhere helpful."

"It's Ian." Kate was surprised at how steady her voice was, because her legs certainly weren't. "I managed to follow it until I got kicked out, but the anchor was Ian's old school's swimming pool. The place where he felt most at home. I know it's him."

Loki fixed her with a look, and she was thankful that it was more thoughtful than it was judging. "Ian is dead."

Kate took a deep breath and let it out slowly. _One, two, three, long exhale_. "I know what I saw."

Thor broke in, face grave. "We should continue this discussion later. There are preparations to be made – Asgard is under attack."

Kate turned back as Loki led her out of the treasure vault.

The Mind Gem winked at her from its pedestal.

She had a headache beyond comprehension.

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><p><strong>AN: EXAMS ARE OVER! I'm sorry it took so long; I had belatedly realised that I had to cram thirteen weeks of readings across four modules into one week of frantic studying - followed by a week of depressing exams. **

**But it's all done, and I can now enjoy the Christmas season until my results come back! **

**Yay! **

**Anyways, let me know how you feel about this chapter; do you want more of Eydis, or should we just keep the attention on Kate and Loki? Your reviews are quite literally the highlights of my day(s). **


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs.**

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><p>Almost everybody had lost someone in the Infinity War.<p>

Kate had lost Ian. Frigga had lost Odin. SHIELD had lost Nick Fury, who'd been shot down while defending a bunker of civilians. His last words had apparently been '_come at me, motherfuckers_'. Classic Nicholas J. Fury.

Thor had lost Jane – but that had been before the war even started.

That had been the death that started it all.

They hadn't even known that the Reality Gem had been within Jane Foster until she'd passed at the ludicrously tender age of forty-seven. A year after Kate and Loki had returned to Asgard, marriage intact, Jane had stumbled upon the Aether and the dark elves had risen. Thor and Loki had plotted a way to get Malekith, leader of the dark elves, to extract the Aether from Foster before attempting to destroy it, but even after Malekith and his elves had been vanquished, a sliver of the Aether remained in Jane's bones. It fed on her, poisoning her body and warping her cells so grievously that they turned on each other and rotted her from within.

The doctors called it _malignant fibrous histiocytoma_. Darcy called it _bone cancer_. Kate called it a _tragedy_. Odin called it _the_ _human condition_ and remained steadfast in his denial of a place for Foster by Thor's side in Asgard. _She is neither warrior nor sorcerer_, he reasoned, _and in any case, no apple could cure her now – she's far too sick_.

Thor never called it anything, and by then, Jane was too weak to talk.

He refused to speak about it and refused to leave her side. When she finally wasted away, hand in his hand, he had had to deal with the sudden reanimation of her body as the Reality Gem took control. And that was when Thanos decided to beam down one of his flunkies to retrieve the Gem for him.

The entire hospital was decimated in the following three-way melee between Thor, the reanimated Jane, and a strange woman who was half blue, half cybernetic. It ended with Thor managing to subdue the reality gem, but was overcome by his injuries as he knelt by the broken corpse of his lover. When he awoke in the rubble of an operating theatre, Jane's body and the strange woman were gone.

A hundred and six people had died that afternoon – excluding Jane Foster herself.

Two years after that, Kate found herself on a pretty much suicidal run of missions across the realms and through the galaxies, chasing Thanos's minions deep into uncharted territory. The Infinity War consisted of three years of frantic scrambling for information, deadly skirmishes, and costly covert operations that, more often than not, were not worth the lives spent on them. Kate spent six months trapped in one of Thanos's wormholes, during which she spent all of her time on the astral plane to keep from starving to death before she amassed enough power and desperation to bust herself out. Loki had spent that period of time imprisoned in a cave in a pocket dimension of space with a bitch of a lock-jawed serpent that drooled poison onto his torso.

Fucking medieval.

The momentary chaos caused by Kate's explosive escape from Thanos's clutches (she wasn't kidding when she said that she _busted herself out_) was enough of a flare to break through the blindness that the Space Gem had inflicted on Heimdall. Odin vested the greater part of his power in Heimdall in the ensuing battle between the latter and the Titan. The Gatekeeper of Asgard eventually emerged triumphant, Space Gem in hand, but Odin was grievously weakened. His last command before slipping into the Odinsleep was to bring Loki home.

Kate literally had one square meal upon crawling back to Asgard before getting Heimdall to send her to her husband's prison to retrieve him.

On his return, it had taken him three surgeries and two and a half months of intense therapy before he knew his own children.

Upon his complete recovery, Loki set out for vengeance – and succeeded in tricking Thanos into relinquishing the Mind Gem – for the mind is easily persuaded.

Ian died twenty-four days after that, during an attack on Washington.

Relying on the intelligence that Ian's mind-walking had brought them, the Avengers found Thanos's hole and dragged him out of it. Kate laid down her arms when the Hulk, augmented by the Power Gem, finally wrestled the Reality Gem from Thanos's grip.

Twelve million people across nine realms and thirty-two galaxies were dead.

And Kate thought it was all over. When she and Loki finally dropped to their knees and held their children after being apart for sixteen months, she thought that peace had finally been won.

_Shows what fuck they knew._

* * *

><p>Kate heaved another dagger at a target set into the wall of her living room, savouring the way that it thudded into its centre and imagining that the innocuous red spot was one of Thanos's gleaming eyes. Glaring at the spot, she summoned the dagger back into her hand and threw it again.<p>

_Rinse and repeat_.

She'd been at this _forever _(… maybe about an hour an a half, actually), and the burn in her arms was still doing nothing to quell the frustration welling up in her chest. She'd thrown a hissy when Loki had left for a war meeting that he very firmly informed her that she was not invited to, and had taken to physical exercise to try and calm the fuck down. To be fair, she knew that she had no business being at _any _war meetings, because she was no longer a warrior, and her duties did not include national security.

But, still. She'd been a big deal during the Infinity War. Wasn't this kind of _Infinity War: Part II_? Wasn't the old cast supposed to make an appearance and be very involved in the war effort? Wasn't this what happened in sequels?

Kate flung the dagger at the wall again, and noted that she'd have to get Loki or one of the boys to repair the plaster. Whose room was that, beyond? Eydis's? Right. She wasn't in it – she'd been woken at the crack of dawn by a crashing ruckus that had been a supremely hung-over daughter making her way down to the warriors' guild for morning drills. Kate rolled her shoulders and clenched her fist, telekinetically punching a hole straight through the wall with the blade, just to see if she could.

She could.

"_Odin's balls!"_

_Huh._ Kate squinted through the hole left behind by the weapon – yep. It had punched through into Eydis's room, and embedded itself halfway through the opposite wall – which Eydis shared with one of her brothers.

Vali materialised before her, hair and eyes wild, clutching her dagger. "_Seriously_, Mama, there's a reason why training grounds are _outdoors_!"

"Sorry, Piggo." Kate took the dagger back, slightly embarrassed by her lack of control. "If you don't mind, could you help me fix the walls? I'm afraid that I was a little overenthusiastic."

Vali's lips twitched, and with a wave of his hand, the wall before them was made whole. "I'll fix the one in my room later. What's up with the angst?"

Kate shrugged. "Your father's at a war meeting I'm not invited to. I'm supposed to get back into shape if I want to do anything to deal with whatever happened last night."

"Last night?"

"Don't play all cute with me, Piggo. I know that you and your brother know about the attempt on the Treasure Vault. Your father and I are fully aware that you eavesdrop on our conversations. We know how to keep our private discussions _really _private. If we don't want you to hear it, you don't. Why don't you think you've overheard us having sex, yet?"

Vali shifted uncomfortably. "But this isn't going to be like the last time, right?"

Kate raised an eyebrow at her son. "You were too young to remember much of the last time, I think. I left you and your siblings here with your grandparents for a reason."

"No… But I remember that you and Papa weren't around for a really long time, and I remember grandpapa falling into the Odinsleep. People tried not to talk about it around us, but Nari and I recall people whispering that you and Papa were probably dead."

Kate gave the dagger a perfunctory polish and slipped it back into its sheath. "I don't know what's going to happen," she replied at last, looking her son in the eye. "But I do know that this time, unlike the last, the fighting will probably touch Asgard, given that we are in possession of two of the Infinity Gems – the Mind Gem in the Vault, and the Space Gem with Heimdall. If Thanos is reaching for them, he will come here. So why don't we wake your brother so that you both can show me what you've been learning at Asgardian Hogwarts?"

* * *

><p>Eydis was extremely angry, and her hangover was not helping.<p>

"It's like I'm _diseased_," she ranted as she slouched against the stands surrounding the public training ground. Had it really been just yesterday that she'd won her spot in the ranks of the einherjar? "The officers all have this _face _when they speak to me – like they really wish they wouldn't have to. When we spar, they actually hit to bruise – it's not just a respectful sort of sparring; they _want _it to hurt. I can see it in their eyes. Look!" Eydis pulled up her shirt to expose an ugly red contusion blooming against her ribs. "This happened through two layers of padding!"

Phillida, Eydis's best friend, hissed in sympathy.

"I don't know, Phil. Am I being a whiny wuss? For all I know, this is what differentiates the einherjar from the training corps. Actual hits."

Absently, Phillida rubbed the crest of the warriors' guild emblazoned on her helmet, running her fingers around the single star that denoted her rank as a trainee in the corps. Beside her, Eydis was glaring at the freshly painted star on her own helmet that proclaimed her to be a junior einherjar. "I reckon that it's because you're Jötunn," Phil said, presently.

Eydis made an angry sound. "I was a Jötunn in the corps, and _no one_ was so... hostile."

"Yes, but the corps consists of younger officers – and people who _know _you, who've been around you as you grew up – and the head of the corps is General Volstagg, who is close to your father and uncle. The einherjar comprises mainly veterans of both the Infinity War and the Jötunn skirmishes – who have not forgotten that Jötunheimr sided with Thanos in the early months of the Infinity War. The frost giants cost them dearly. They know that you aren't going to tell your parents."

"But my father is Jötunn, and he's a hero. My mother is Aesir. I'm Asgardian. Why is their fury directed at _me_?" Eydis stood at just under six feet, was strapped with lean muscle, and had a halberd casually propped up on the seat beside her – and she still sounded like a lost sixteen year old.

Phillida shrugged, leaning back and shading her eyes against the early-afternoon glare. "Because your father doesn't _look _Jötunn, and you do. You know these people. All frost giants look alike to them. It doesn't matter that you're a lighter blue, or shorter than the others. You're still Jötunn."

Eydis's laugh was strangled. "You know, my father thinks that just because I can swing a blade and cartwheel in a full suit of armour, everyone in Asgard loves me."

Phillida's snort was decidedly derisive. "Parents are idiots. Eh?" Surprised, she squinted at the figures unexpectedly spilling out into the empty training ground. "I thought everyone went for lunch?"

Frowning, Eydis craned her neck for a closer look. "Is that… Is that Nari? And Vali? By the Nine – is that my _mother_? Get down!" And Eydis grabbed her friend and dove.

Philida found herself on the ground, huddled behind the row in front of them, peering at the trio kitted out in sparring gear from between two stone seats. "Why are we hiding?"

"She doesn't know we're here yet, and I want to watch without her calling me into the ring or being weird. Remember that time she came for the showcase at the Guild and referred to me as her _blueberry muffin_ multiple times to a great deal of people? She'd never called me that before that day, and has never called me that since. I _swear_, she does things just to fulfil her Embarrassing Parent quotient."

"True."

Princess Katharine rolled out her neck and shoulders and stood, unarmed, in the centre of the training ground, smiling genially at her sons as they eyed her with some measure of trepidation. "There are no rules. First one to get my sash from me gets twenty gold pieces, but if I get both of yours, you both become my little slaves for a week."

Even at a distance, Eydis saw Nari shudder at the prospect of standing around holding skeins of yarn while their mother patiently rolled them into balls.

Eydis wasn't sure of who made the first move – she guessed that it was probably Vali, because Vali _always _made the first move – but suddenly the training ground was blurry with the haze of magic.

The twins were always stronger when they worked together – Eydis swore that they had some telepathic twin-communication system going on – and they were clearly attempting to slide into that groove now. Strangely, though, they seemed unable to coordinate their magic, or their attacks. Their usual modus operandi was to have Nari erect a shield while Vali concentrated on the offensive. Vali's unpredictability was his main strength, and he could only fully focus on that if he was sure that he was protected from any incoming attacks. This time, however, Vali seemed slower, more uncertain, and Nari found himself slowly being separated from his brother as they sent each other frantic eyebrow messages.

_She's running interference_, Eydis realised, watching her mother slide herself between her sons. She wasn't magical at all, but she'd heard her family talk enough over the dinner table to know the theory. Kate was running a telepathic jammer into the minds of both boys, distorting any communication that they may make. Kate casually wove around the shots of magic that sought to immobilise her, letting them dissipate into the air behind her or slam into the defences of the other son, battering their defences down.

"Where is this _coming _from?" Phillida gaped, watching her best friend's mother deal a series of concussive telekinetic blasts at both boys. Nari's shields withstood the attack, but Vali's crumpled like rice paper. With a vicious tug, Kate ripped the sash from his waist and tangled it up in his brother's legs. Nari tripped, shields faltering in his distraction. Kate broke through the wavering shields with a well-timed push and cut the sash from his waist.

It was over, and she hadn't physically gone within a metre of either boy.

Laughing, she went over Nari, who was still sitting in the dust, completely disgruntled. "That'll teach you not to watch for non-physical attacks. Vali, you _really _need to work on your defence..."

Eydis leaned back against the seats, flabbergasted.

"I thought she _retired_?" Phillida eyed the group as they exited the training ground, Vali demanding a rematch already. "She _destroyed _them! And Nari and Vali's tag-team is honestly pretty solid – I've seen them obliterate opponents in two minutes _flat_!"

"Hey. I'm just as shocked as you, and she's _my _mother. But she never stopped using her telekinesis, so I guess that it never got rusty… I suppose that she just can't cartwheel around in a full suit of armour any more." Eydis rubbed at her forehead, exhaling gustily. "C'mon. I'm actually hungry, now."

"Yeah. Let's find you a house to eat."

Eydis laughed and knocked her shoulder into Phil – gently – but she couldn't help but feel unsettled. Her mother was actually breaking out her sparring leathers. That meant only one thing.

War was on the horizon.

* * *

><p>"The councilmen are convinced that Thanos has at least one of the other gems in his keeping – they believe that he would not dare to break into Asgard otherwise."<p>

Kate arched an eyebrow and put her book aside, sitting up a little straighter in bed. Loki had just returned from his day-long war meeting and was currently attempting to remove his boots and his jacket simultaneously. "Thor wants the gems on Jötunheimr and Midgard to be checked on – he trusts that the Norns have the Soul Gem in safe custody. Since no one knows where the Time Gem is because it is actually lost out of time and no one has the resources to go looking for it, we just have to pray that Thanos is just as in the dark about its whereabouts as we are." Loki huffed, finally managing to divest himself of his footwear. "I offered to go to Jötunheimr – alone, of course, because a squadron of Aesir would only irritate the Jötunns." He paused here, in the midst of shrugging off his jacket. "I also volunteered your services for the mission to Midgard."

He'd barely finished speaking before Kate launched herself off the bed and wrapped her arms around him, trapping his arms in his sleeves as she hugged him as tightly as she could. Thoroughly annoyed with clothing by now, Loki vanished his jacket and brought his newly-freed arms around his wife, tilting her chin up. "I know that this unsettles you, so if it brings you peace of mind to involve yourself, I will support you."

"I'm sorry for being a bitch, this morning."

Loki made a dismissive sound in his throat. "Yes. That."

He was just leaning down to kiss her when the door burst open and their children came tumbling in.

"I WANT TO GO TO- oh, _gross_! Ew!"

Resigned, Loki and Kate stepped away from each other to find Eydis looking a little green. Nari and Vali were exhibiting polite interest in the floor and Kate's bedside lamp respectively.

"Yes, Eydis?"

Eydis cleared her throat and started again. "Papa, I would like to go to Jötunheimr with you."

"Is there any particular reason why, or do you just want to see a lot of snow?"

Eydis's eyebrow twitched. "Mere curiosity. I would like to see the land of the frost giants, given that I am half frost giant myself."

Loki scrutinised his daughter for a moment, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was rifling through her thoughts. "So be it," he said, earning himself a sharp look from Kate. "The Jötunns will not look askance at an extra Asgardian. You will be under my protection, and as an einherjar, you ought to be able to dispatch any threat – _threats that are unlikely to materialise_ – with ease. We leave at dawn."

_She wants to see other people who look like her_, Loki told Kate silently.

Ah. Right. Kate felt a pang of guilt – she'd not made the colour of her children's skin an issue when they were growing up – _skin is skin_, she used to say. _It's what's on the inside that counts._ She'd personally always seen herself as Singaporean first, then Chinese, and she'd tried to impart the concept of loyalty and citizenship on to her children ahead of their race. Black, White, alien – they were all Asgardian, right? Ought she have done more to deal with the fact that her children were clearly half Jötunn when there were no other people of their race on Asgard?

Vali broke into her moment of _Am I A Bad Mother?_ panic. "We want to go with Papa, too!"

Kate's expression turned incredulous. "I just whupped you _both _good and proper, and you want me to let you wander around Jötunheimr?"

"But _Eydis_ can go," Nari whined. "Why can't _we_? She's _barely _older than we are."

Eydis tried not to look smug. She failed.

"Eydis is battle-trained. You are not. Eydis is also more likely to listen to your father if he tells her not to touch something. _You boys_, on the other hand..."

"Then let us go to Midgard!"

"What? _No!_" Kate threw her hands up in exasperation. "If I wouldn't let you go to Jötunheimr, I certainly wouldn't let you go to Midgard to scare humans! Either way, you both have _lessons_. You can't use the _Adventure with Mommy! _card to get you out of things. Now, out! To bed! And _you!_" Kate turned her gaze onto her daughter.

Eydis braced herself, waiting for some sort of censure.

"Dress warm and hide your halberd. The Jötunns get nervous easily."

Eydis nodded and backed out the door rapidly, closing it with a soft _thud_.

Kate exhaled harshly, sitting back down on the bed, and ran a hand through her hair. Loki sat down beside her and let her lean against him. "I'll hide her halberd for her," he murmured into her hair. "She will be fine. I promise you."

"_Is _she ok, though? She never mentioned wanting to visit Jötunheimr before."

Loki shrugged. He'd tried to probe further, but even though Eydis wasn't magical, he'd managed to teach her how to erect mental barriers to block telepathic snooping. It was admittedly more difficult for non-magical people to master, but Eydis was intelligent and, more importantly, very focused. She'd learned his lessons a little _too_ well. "She is forty five – I believe that is _eighteen_ in stages of mortal maturity – she may be questioning her identity. We would be lucky to get this over and done with quickly, while she is still young, rather than have to sit through decades of her attempting to _find herself_."

Kate snuggled deeper into his neck. "I guess. Ok. You should shower. You smell like fussy generals and old maps."

Loki's lips quirked and he gave her a quick peck on the forehead. "It is heartening to know that you can, at least, beat the boys in a melee."

"Of course." Kate extricated herself from Loki's embrace with a smirk and fluffed her pillow up. "Kids need to learn early that mothers always win."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: A modified version of the events of Thor 2 occurred after _In Dreams_: Jane did discover the Aether, and Thor and Loki did trick Malekith into his own destruction, but there was none of that evil Loki-Odin switching, because Kate would have probably beat his covetous ass. **

**I made the decision to include Eydis's struggles with racism in this story because I feel that it's an important issue. Kate has tried to be a good mother by not making a big deal out of the fact that her kids are half Jötunn. Unlike Loki, they all keep their Jötunn form - I figure that Loki probably doesn't because he's more used to appearing as an Aesir than as a Jötunn. Kate has probably tried to instil in them a sense of confidence for them to be comfortable walking around in their own skin. **

**However, because of that acceptance, Eydis finds it difficult to deal with racism when she's suddenly put in a place where there are people who are willing and able to make life difficult for her on the basis of the colour of her skin. The fact that she's the princess means little to nothing, because they know that she isn't going to tell her parents - they are her superiors, and unwritten military code means that she won't be telling _anyone_ about her treatment - and it's not like they're _openly_ being assholes. Even though she's in line to the throne, Thor's hale and hearty, and in their eyes, she probably won't be in power for _millennia_. **

**Let me know what you think!**

**Cat: Thank you! There will be some Nari / Vali coming up, but probably only a little, because I don't want the narratives to get too cluttered by too many voices. I hope you like this chapter!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs.**

* * *

><p>Loki did not appreciate the way that some of their escorts were looking at his daughter.<p>

They'd been sledding along the tundra for about twenty minutes, because Heimdall refused to deposit them any closer to the citadel in order to avoid the disruption of 'daily civilian life', and already he'd caught at least three different guardsmen casting surreptitious glances at Eydis. Eydis was, as per usual, completely oblivious and looking around her at the ice fields in interest – but he wouldn't put it past one of those younglings to chat her up if he got the chance.

Loki sighed – a sound lost in the howling of the winds – and checked to see if the warming spell he'd laced into Eydis's parka was still working. It had decreased in intensity to make up for her natural body temperature as it regulated itself in the cold, which meant that she was more frost-giant than he'd realised. _Huh_.

He turned back to the path in time to glare at a guardsman who'd been quietly staring at Eydis from the corner of his eye. _Yes_, his daughter is fascinating as a hybrid. _Yes_, she is very beautiful (how couldn't she be, with him as a father and Kate as a mother?). _No_, eyes off because she's _barely _forty-five.

The guardsman gulped and looked away. Loki began to feel a headache brewing. Was _this_ what being the father of a daughter approaching sexual maturity was like? By the Nine Realms and all the gods of Hel; was _this _how his parents felt when he and Thor discovered sex?

… Probably not. Frigga had had the sex talk with both her sons, and it mainly consisted of pleas to not get _anybody _pregnant before putting a ring on it. Loki had tried to erase that afternoon from his memory, but some trauma cannot be undone.

It said a lot about Loki's preoccupation with puberty that he almost missed the sharp ring of steel runners striking stone instead of the constant _whoosh_ of them gliding across scow.

"We're on a path to the citadel," a guard informed him unnecessarily. "We will arrive in good time."

Loki grunted in acknowledgment and they were off again, the ice dogs racing each other down the narrow path. Beside him, Eydis had pushed her hood off and was gazing, eyes bright, at their surroundings. "It's so _beautiful_, papa," she breathed, tilting her head up to beam at a passing mountain. "I've never seen so much _snow_."

Loki pursed his lips and flipped her hood back up. "Save your wonder for the citadel. I am told that it is quite beautiful in the middle of the day. And keep your hood up, girl. You lose the most heat from the top of your head."

Eydis made an indignant noise in her throat and flicked it back down. "_Papa_. I'm ok; I'm not even _cold_. I don't like the tunnel vision. There's so much to _see_."

How does one argue with _that_? Sighing deeply, Loki directed another scowl at the escorts in general and focused on the way the weak sunlight filtered through glaciers spun between mountains, turning them into slabs of diamond and crystal. But for a moment of sentimentality or political shrewdness on the part of Odin, this world would have been his grave. It looked very different from when he'd come in his youth with Thor to play at making war; the Casket of Ancient Winters had been returned to Jötunheimr as part of a peace treaty brokered with the frost giants early in the Infinity War, and the Jötunns had used the intervening years to rebuild their homeworld.

It really was very beautiful.

Loki looked down at the pale hands of his Aesir form, lost in thought. When the birth of Eydis outed him as a Jötunn to the general populace of the Nine Realms, there had been a question of whether he could now openly wear his Jötunn skin.

He'd refused. Point blank. Wouldn't even consider it.

Loki Odinson would not wear the skin of a people who had left him to die of exposure for being too physically _small_.

But, watching Eydis and remembering her obstinate desire to see Jötunheimr, Loki wondered if the Asgardians had been any less vicious to his half-Jötunn child in the confines of the warriors' guild.

The God of Chaos was aware that cruelty need not be overt to leave scars.

* * *

><p>Her father was right. He usually was, but he was <em>really <em>right about Svellmǫrk – it was _beautiful_. Her mother had smuggled some Midgardian movies to Asgard and gotten Eydis to watch them with her as a child, and while she'd always been more of a _Mulan_ kind of kid, the memory of the ice palace scene in _Frozen _had stuck with her, for some reason.

The Jötunn citadel of Svellmǫrk was about a hundred times prettier than Elsa's ice palace. And they were in the main courtyard of its crown jewel – the Great Halls of the King.

Her father looked amused as she craned her neck about, trying to drink in as much architecture as she could before they had to go indoors. "You're going to have to get off the sled, now. There will be time to play at being a tourist later."

"Mmph."

"_Eydis_."

She reluctantly tore her eyes away from a spun-sugar overhang of hanging ice drops and leapt off the sled, allowing her father and their escorts to lead them through the main archway and down a short corridor, stopping in front of a set of intricately carved double doors.

The guards posted at this door glanced at her somewhat expectantly (… and, inexplicably, a little scornfully), but a raised eyebrow from her father shut them up and had them pushing the doors open to announce the arrival of Loki, Prince of Asgard, and his daughter.

Huh. Wow. Eydis was used to being one of the tallest in a room. That was certainly not the case here. Somewhat less formal than the throne room of Asgard, the hall they were in housed a collection of tables where smaller knots of Jötunns congregated, quietly working on rolls of parchment, discussing business, or just having meals. It was a room _full _of frost giants, and the smallest one Eydis caught sight of as they trooped down the aisle was about a head taller than she. Then her father made a quiet sound in his throat, and Eydis snapped her head forward, focusing on the Jötunn seated on a beautifully carved throne on the dais ahead of them. _Right. Play the tourist later. _

… Or not. She kind of zoned out when her father slid into court pleasantries.

King Mímir, lord of the Jötunns, was at least a full metre taller than she was, and she was busy deciding if she could take him on when her father nudged her and she realised, belatedly, that she was expected to show deference.

She looked around a little frantically before bowing like she'd seen her father do on occasion, although she left out the slightly mocking demeanour that usually accompanied those shows of respect on his part. She didn't that that would go down well with someone large enough to crush her just by sitting on her.

She was so nervous that she completely missed the slight smile that tugged at Mímir's otherwise unreadable expression before he turned his attention back to Loki. "I have received your message from Heimdall, Your Highness, and I assure you that the item in question is well-protected. I'm afraid that you have come all this way for no purpose."

A couple of frost giant guards took a break from looking menacing to glance at each other in thinly veiled confusion. _What _was well-protected? Eydis guessed that the fact that Jötunheimr was home to an Infinity Gem was not broadcasted to the general public.

She also could tell that her father was not a fan of this open-concept layout of ruling by the way that his lips thinned. "If you do not mind, Your Majesty, could we speak in private?"

Mímir nodded and stood, gesturing to a door half-hidden by a tapestry behind the dais. Eydis made to follow, but her Loki shook his head imperceptibly. _Let the grown ups confer. _

Miffed, Eydis took a step back as Mímir and Loki swept into the antechamber – leaving her alone in an audience hall full of people she didn't know.

_Eydis Awkward Lokadóttir._

She wasn't quite sure of what to do with herself, and practically the entire hall was _staring _at her, so she decided that perhaps she'd sit down.

Somewhere.

She headed over to the very end of a long table in what she hoped was a nonchalant stride before realising that the bench was a little too tall for her – so sitting down would necessitate a very embarrassing tip-toe-hop-swivel-clamber manoeuvre.

_Fuck! _

Trying not to look anyone in the eye, Eydis executed the necessary movements and patted the inner pocket of her parka – where her shrunken halberd was – for some reassurance. _Gods_. Maybe this was how her tiny mother felt when confronted with commodes constructed with taller Aesir in mind.

She peeked at the group of Jötunns sharing her table and immediately glanced away. Definitely hostile. Trying not to look too obvious, she eyed her surroundings, taking the opportunity to study the full-Jötunns, and trying not to show it when taken aback by a particularly venom-filled glare.

Maybe they weren't used to foreigners. And she was clearly _not _a full-blooded Jötunn. They could be assholes about that here, too. Eydis bit her lip and concentrated on the differences between her and them.

Full-blooded Jötunns were taller, obviously, and… bluer. Their features had the same hard, chiselled look to them – she saw where her father got his cheekbones from – and their eyes were the red of a blood moon.

They were also all male.

Where were the females?

Frowning, Eydis did another peremptory scan of the hall. Lots of bare chests and some short goatees. Mostly bald heads. A couple of loincloth-clad youths.

Seriously, where were the women?

She was distracted from her extremely valid question, however, by an expanse of blue skin as someone cut into her line of vision.

"Err, Lady…? Err. Do you mind if I join you?"

Eydis looked up (and up, and up) into the face of a visibly anxious frost giant – one of their escorts from earlier, she noted. The one that her father kept glowering at for some reason.

"Um. Sure. And just Eydis is fine. Call me Eydis."

He spasmed a little in a sort of half bow and slid into the space beside her more gracefully than she had. "I am Hræsvelgr."

"Um. Ok."

There was a very brief and extremely uncomfortable silence, which was eventually broken by the frost giant. "So, err. How do you like Jötunheimr?"

Great! She knew what to say to this! "It's cool! Really beautiful." She lifted her eyes from the table to meet his gaze, feeling a little chirpier as she thought about the way that the ice reflected the sun back into itself tenfold.

Hræsvelgr nodded. "I am glad that you find it so. I was but a youngling when the Casket of Ancient Winters was returned to us, but I remember the dark days of old when we scavenged in slush."

_Yeah, my grandfather kind of confiscated that you guys when you got all grabby in the Dark Ages before my father stole it back and brokered a peace treaty that no one agreed with at the time. It all turned out good, obviously, but it was pretty touch and go. And he may have killed your old king while at it. Sorry? _

Eydis reined in her inner babbler. "Well, it's very breath-taking _now_," she replied with a smile. This frost giant was actually quite nice-looking, if one was into chiselled cheekbones and a slightly crooked smile.

"What is Asgard like?"

"Erm. Golden. A lot of gold. It's very sunny. It snows sometimes, but it isn't as cold as it is here."

His lips twitched. "I would like to see it, one day."

Eydis blushed. She wasn't sure why. She just did. "Um. That's cool. You should. Maybe come as a guard? For King Mímir if he ever comes?"

He seemed to find her open-ended suggestions amusing because his lips stopped twitching and curved up into a real smile. "I am only a young warrior – not particularly senior. I doubt that I would be allowed to accompany my king on any state visits for at least a millennia, but if I do, I would come and visit you."

_Oh my! _

Eydis was pretty sure that he was flirting and did not know how to deal with it – it's not like anyone had ever flirted with the half-Jötunn daughter of the most dangerous of Asgard's royal family before. Completely flustered and trying not to show it, Eydis did what the heroines of her mother's sappy Midgardian television shows did. She cleared her throat and changed the subject with as much dignity as she could with a face hot enough to cook a boar over.

"Why aren't there any women, here?"

Slightly disoriented by the sudden one-eighty flip in conversation topics, Hræsvelgr blinked a couple of times before coughing a little uneasily. "The audience room only admits men. It has been so for as far as anyone can remember. Women do not participate in matters of state. You are the first female in this room during public hours in at least a thousand years."

Eydis gulped and recalled the look on her father's face just a couple of minutes before, when the guards were probably about to deny her entry. _Oh_. "That's… incredibly backward."

He shrugged. "It is how it is."

Just then, the door to the anteroom swung open and King Mímir and her father emerged, the former looking slightly peeved and the latter looking appropriately smug.

Mímir clapped his hands and pointed at a nearby guard. "You. Inform Chief Gymir that a mirror must be looked at. Have him ready a small squad ready to accompany His Highness and his daughter to Sólarsetr Glacier."

The guard nodded brusquely and slipped away. Mímir scowled at nothing for a moment before seating himself back on his throne. Loki looked around, brows furrowed, for a moment before catching sight of her sitting beside an understandably nervous Hræsvelgr.

"Eydis."

She leapt up, trying not to faceplant into the floor in front of Mímir's entire court, and looked back at Hræsvelgr. "Um. See you around!"

He broke into another smile – albeit a slightly frightened one. "Yes. Hopefully. Farewell, Eydis."

Loki's expression was getting increasingly thunderous. Eydis sighed and trailed after him as he strode out of the hall after a perfunctory bow to Mímir. There were probably many reasons why Asgardian boys never chatted her up – this was definitely one of them.

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><p>Loki was extremely irritated. It seemed that he needed to work on his discouraging father face if he was going to keep his daughter away from men in general until her two-hundredth birthday. Or forever. Whichever. Forever was preferable.<p>

This was depressing. He was losing his touch.

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><p><strong>AN: I'm so sorry that this took so long. I had a pretty serious block, and, to be honest, I'm not particularly pleased with this chapter. Any feedback is extremely welcome! **

**Also, have a very, _very_ Merry Christmas!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs. **

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><p>"This is a terrible idea."<p>

"You worry too much. Don't be such a moose."

"Seriously. We've never done this. Ever. Papa said it's dangerous beyond belief. What if we fall?"

Vali turned to fix his twin brother with a look that could only be labelled as absolute scorn. "Then we'd best hang on, right?"

Nari threw up his hands in disgust. "I don't know why I don't just start screaming for Master Zosimos."

"Because you're a prat _and _a wet blanket. Besides, Zosimos is an alchemist. He wouldn't know world-walking from a brisk jog, considering that he does neither."

Nari refrained from informing him that neither of them knew much about world-walking either, which was why they ought to _leave it the fuck alone _instead of trying to zip down to Midgard, where their mother was at that very moment, having left about an hour ago on Heimdall's beam of sunlight. He'd already done so several times in different ways, and Vali had brushed all of his concerns aside. As per usual.

"There." Vali sat back on his haunches and scrutinised the spell circle that he'd just drawn out in chalk in the middle of his room. Their father didn't need a spell circle to serve as a focal point when prancing around the universe, but their father also had centuries of practice. Vali had dug up the literature on world-walking _months _ago and was just _itching _to give it a go. But, being very young and extremely inexperienced, he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to do it alone.

It was very convenient that he had a twin on hand, even though that twin was kind of a wimp.

Nari plonked down on Vali's bed, glaring at the drawings. "And your handwriting is _horrible_. What's that rune? _Passage_? It looks like _latrine_. You're going to have us directed towards a cesspit in the Kree Empire."

Vali scowled at the rune. "It's _perfectly _legible, you great ponce. Now come on." He shook out his shoulders and stepped gingerly into the centre of the circle.

Nari didn't budge. "You need me to augment the focus of that spell, and if I don't want to, you aren't going _anywhere_. I'd rather not be ripped apart by the awesome power of the cosmos while trying to navigate a series of temporal portals down to Midgard, thank you very much."

Vali pursed his lips and thought hard. Nari's overabundance of caution was only slightly outweighed by his desire to one-up his peers and tutors academically. Kate's and Loki's children were all vastly different, but they'd all inherited their father's occasionally unhealthy, all-consuming hunger to _win_. "But you can observe the interaction of the realms upon Yggdrasil's branches themselves," he pointed out, the picture of earnest scholastic innocence. "Master Democritus would give his legs to gaze upon the roots of the universe. The data you could parse from the trip would keep you busy in the labs for _months_."

Just as he predicted, Nari's eyes narrowed. _Score_. "Fine," he snapped, getting to his feet in a huff. "But if we die and Papa comes to Hel to negotiate for our souls, I'm burying you in silver so you aren't coming back."

His twin smirked and held out a hand, pulling him carefully into the circle. Together, they let their magic spill out around them, bathing the room in the fire of an opal. When Vali was certain that the spell had taken root, he lifted his foot. Nari's grasp tightened, and both brothers took a step out into the confusing brightness of the space between the worlds.

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><p>Kate was, at that very moment, blissfully oblivious of her sons' life-and-death attempt at world-walking. Heimdall had sent her directly to the headquarters of PROTECT in Washington. SHIELD had died decades ago, and Nat and Rogers had used the opportunity to create another security organisation in its place – one that was, hopefully, free of HYDRA's agents.<p>

Kate had no idea what PROTECT stood for. She knew that the P stood for Peacekeeping, but that was pretty much it.

Either way, she was settled comfortably on a couch with a cup of tea, watching Nat scan her way through a file of classified information. Gods bless her, the woman had barely aged. Neither had Rogers – the serum that they'd both been injected with to make them super soldiers for their states had accelerated their cell growth and healing factor, slowing their aging process down tremendously. Nat barely looked forty, even though she was in her eighties. Rogers looked _slightly _older than her, but not by much. He still was buffer than Rambo, though.

Finally, Nat looked up, expression grim. "You're _sure _that you were in Ian's… happy place?"

Even now, she could feel the edges of the tiled floor digging into her knees, and smell the chlorine in the air. "Yes. The bleachers."

"It couldn't be anyone else?"

Kate shrugged. "Perhaps. It's not very likely, though. Singapore has been underwater for almost forty years. The tsunami took everything. There are precious few Singaporeans still around, and even fewer of them would have been there during Ian's time."

Nat noted that Kate's knuckles were white where they clenched in her lap, and looked away politely to give her time to get herself under control. Thanos had announced his arrival on Earth with a tsunami defying all geographical logic that had wiped out most of the coastal areas of Southeast Asia. Kate's home country, a tiny island off the Malay Peninsula, had been obliterated. Her parents had drowned. Ian would have, too, if he hadn't taken a job at Stark Industries six months prior to the start of the war. And then he'd died, too.

When Kate spoke again, her voice was completely steady. "We need to do a check on the Power Gem."

Nat raised an eyebrow. "I check the feed from its holding pen every day. It's safe."

Kate leaned forward and glanced around the office once before meeting Nat's impassive gaze once more. "I believe that I will want to visit the facility in the Rockies for myself."

"Ah." Nat got up and stretched, reaching for her phone. "I can't leave right now, and Steve is on a mission somewhere in Uzbekistan, but I can get a team ready to leave with you in about two hours. Will that be alright with-"

There were three sharp raps on the door before it slid open, revealing a knot of agents looking both threatened and bemused.

"This meeting is _private_," Nat snarled, rounding on her people. "What could _possibly _be so urgent?"

Both the agents in front looked at each other in confusion.

"It's fine; they didn't open the doors! We did!"

The huddle of agents parted to reveal two pale blue, sopping wet teenagers. One waved cheerfully, while the other looked like he was about to throw up.

She was going to _kill _them.

The cheerful one's smile lost all of its wattage as he laid eyes on his mother. "Um…"

Nat's lips twitched. "I'll give you a moment for some family time."

The click of the closing door _echoed _round the suddenly airless room.

Vali attempted to brazen it out. "Hey, Mama! So, Midgard, eh? It's… pretty grey."

Kate's expression morphed from tightly controlled to _murderous_, but when she spoke, her voice was soft. "And how did both of you get here?"

Nari winced. This was bad. They were in really, _really _deep shit. "Um. We world-walked. Vali's idea!"

"And do you always do everything that your fool of a brother asks you to do?"

Vali opened his mouth to protest before his thought process caught up with his wounded pride. He snapped it shut again and stared resolutely at the floor. He could practically hear Nari's heart rate spike as he shook his head frantically.

"What would I have done," Kate asked, voice still even, "if you had fallen?"

"Papa would have bargained for us," Vali piped up, completely certain.

"Contrary to popular belief and his own ego, your father's power has _limits_." The steadiness of her tone began to waver. "Either way, my question has not been answered: what would _I _have _done_?"

The silence in the wake of her shout rang in the ears of her sons, and they remembered that their mother had lost her entire family in a very short space of time. They remembered their older brother, stillborn.

Immortality is no protection from the touch of death.

Kate closed her eyes and audibly counted to ten very slowly before exhaling. "I have neither the time nor the resources to deal with you both now. It is sufficient that you are safely here, and neither of you have seem to have lost any limbs. Is there anything that I should know about?"

There was an awkward silence as either boy hoped that the other would explain the reason why they were dripping water onto Natasha Romanov's plush, previously pristine, cream-coloured carpet. Seeing that their mother was about to explode again, Nari took the plunge, silently damming his brother to a long and agonising death. "We got through alright, but, um. We ended up in a shower, here. While someone was in it."

Kate could only guess how traumatic that had been for the occupant of that shower. Having two blue-skinned boys materialise on top of you while you're buck-naked with soap in your eyes can be quite scarring.

Sighing, she scrubbed at her face and wondered how different her life would have been if she'd married that doctor that her parents were keen on and birthed children who were incapable of messing with the foundations of the cosmos. That still wouldn't have stopped Thanos from trying to kill everybody on the planet, though, so she'd probably be dead.

Perspective always helps.

"I am going to have to handle something for a couple of hours," Kate finally said, glaring at her boys. "You will _not _come with me, because, frankly, you will be more of a hindrance than a help, and everybody will die. I am going to park you at the house of an old friend and I am going to owe her favours from here to the moon, so you will not make life difficult for her. Do you understand?"

Both Nari and Vali nodded vigorously.

"Good." Kate strode towards the door, pausing to touch them both on the shoulders. "I love you very, very much," she said quietly, and they could feel the tremor in her hands. "Life is not cheap. Do not do this again." Her sons nodded again, not trusting themselves to speak. "Dry yourselves."

And then she was out of the room, calling for Nat and a car.

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><p>Whatever the twins had been expecting when their mother had ordered them into a strange-looking Midgardian craft and transported them to a quiet, tree-lined street, it certainly wasn't an elderly lady decked out in neon, skin-tight exercise gear.<p>

Kate had introduced her to them as "Darcy Lewis, one of my oldest friends," and warned them to behave before kissing each of them on the cheek (Nari, Vali, and Darcy got a kiss _and _a hug) and zooming off in the Midgardian craft.

Darcy was narrowing her eyes at them as soon as Kate's car went round a corner and out of sight. "You were a lot smaller when I saw you both last. I don't think you remember it, but I used to bounce you guys on my knees when your mama brought you boys and your sister to visit. Man, she's looking _good_, isn't she? Some of us have to _work_ at keeping youthful."

Nari refrained from mentioning that she still looked old. But if she was around their mother's age or slightly older, then she'd be about seventy to eighty years old – so looking like she was in her sixties wasn't_ too _bad. He supposed.

Vali was concerned about more pressing matters. "So you liked us better than Eydis?"

Darcy snorted as she trooped down the hall and waved at them to follow. "Eydis was too busy smiting barbarians with Pepper's spatulas to be bounced." She disappeared through a doorway. "Since you're both here, let's do some yoga!"

"What?"

"_Yoga_! It's like stretching."

The twins looked at each other and shrugged. Stretching. That sounded doable.

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><p>"Wait, he wants me to put my hands <em>where<em>?"

"Your foot is-"

"I think I cracked something-"

"By the _nine_, Lady Darcy, you have pretty nice legs for an older person."

This wasn't weird at _all_.

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><p><strong>AN: ... Reviews, please? I promise I won't bite!**


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